What work-related tasks are you particularly good at?
What type of coworkers would you prefer to have?
When it comes to work-related benefits and perks, what is most important to you?
When you are recognized for doing a good job at work, how do you like to be rewarded?
If you were to write a ‘help wanted’ ad describing your ideal dream job, what would the ad say?
Resume Creation Tips
No matter what type of resume you are putting together, use these tips and strategies to insure your finished document has the most impact possible when a potential employer reads it.
■ Always use standard letter-size paper in white, ivory, cream, or another neutral color.
■ Include your name, address, and phone number on every page.
■ Make sure your name is larger than anything else on the page (example: your name in 14-point font, the rest in 12-point).
■ Use a font that is easy to read, such as 12-point Times New Roman.
■ Do not use more than three fonts in your resume.
■ Edit, edit, edit. Read it forward and backward, and then have friends with good proofreading skills read it. Don’t rely heavily on grammar and spell checkers, which can miss errors.
■ Use bullet points for items in a list—they highlight your main points, making them hard to miss.
■ Use keywords specific to the hospitality industry.
■ Avoid using excessive graphics such as boxes, distracting lines, and complex designs.
■ Be consistent when using boldface, capitalization, underlining, and italics. If one company name is underlined, make sure all are underlined. Check titles, dates, et cetera.
■ Don’t list your nationality, race, religion, or gender. Keep your resume as neutral as possible. Your resume is a summary of your skills and abilities.
■ Don’t put anything personal on your resume such as your birth date, marital status, height, or hobbies.
■ One page is best, but do not crowd your resume. Shorten the margins if you need more space; if it is necessary to create a two-page resume, make sure you balance the information on each page. Don’t put just one section on the second page. Be careful about where the page break occurs.
■ Keep your resume updated. Don’t write “9/97 to present” if you ended your job two months ago. Do not cross out or handwrite changes on your resume.
■ Understand and remember everything written on your resume. Be able to back up all statements with specific examples.
You can organize the information on your resume in a number of ways, depending on your work history, and how the hiring company wants the resume submitted. The three most common formats are:
Chronological format
Skills format (also known as a functional resume)
Combination of chronological and skills formats
The most common resume format is chronological—you summarize your work experience year-by-year, beginning with your current or most recent employment experience and working backward. For each job, list the dates you were employed, the name and location of the company for which you worked, and the position(s) you held. Work experience is followed by edu- cation, which is also organized chronologically.
The skills resume (also known as the functional resume) emphasizes what you can do rather than what you have done. It is useful if you have large gaps in your work history or have relevant skills that would not be properly high- lighted in a chronological listing of jobs. The skills resume concentrates on your skills and qualifications. Specific jobs you have held are listed, but they are not the primary focus of this type of resume.
You may decide a combination of the chronological and skills resumes would be best to highlight your education, experience, and talents. A com- bination resume allows for a mixture of your skills with a chronological list of jobs you have held. You get the best of both resumes. This is an excellent choice for students who have limited work experience and who want to highlight specific skills.
Cruise Line Tip
Special note to those applying for positions with cruise lines: Many large ship-owning companies use different processes for finding employees. Some companies ask for references to be submitted with a resume; others may demand a specific format for your resume. Whatever the instructions, it is vital that you follow them exactly, or your resume may never be considered.
Making Your Resume Computer-Friendly
One of the biggest trends in terms of corporate recruiting is for employers to accept resumes online via e-mail, through one of the career-related web- sites, or via their own website. If you are going to be applying for jobs online or submitting your resume via e-mail, you will need to create an electronic resume (in addition to a traditional printed resume).
Many companies scan all resumes from job applicants using a computer software program with optical character recognition (OCR), and then enter them into a database, where they can be searched using keywords. When e-mailing your electronic resume directly to an employer, as a general rule, the document should be saved in an ASCII, rich text, or plain text file.
Contact the employer directly to see which method is preferred.
When sending a resume via e-mail, the message should begin as a cover letter (and contain the same information as a cover letter). You can then either attach the resume file to the e-mail message or paste the resume text within the message. Be sure to include your e-mail address and well as your regular mailing address and phone number(s) within all e-mail correspon- dence. Never assume an employer will receive your message and simply hit
“reply” using their e-mail software to contact you.
Guidelines for Creating an Electronic Resume to Be Saved and Submitted in an ASCII Format
■ Set the document’s left and right margins so that 6.5 inches of text will be displayed per line. This will ensure that the text won’t automatically wrap to the next line (unless you want it to).
■ Use a basic, 12-point text font, such as Courier or Times Roman.
■ Avoid using bullets or other symbols. Instead, use an asterisk (“*”) or a dash (“-”).
Instead of using the percentage sign (“%”) for example, spell out the word percent.
■ Use the spell check feature of the software used to create your electronic resume and then proofread the document carefully. Just as applicant tracking software is designed to pick out keywords from your resume that showcase you as a qualified applicant, these same software packages used by employers can
also instantly count the number of typos and spelling errors in your document and report that to an employer as well.
■ Avoid using multiple columns, tables, or charts within your document.
■ Within the text, avoid abbreviations—spell everything out. For example, use the word “Director,” not “Dir.,” or “Vice President” as opposed to “VP.” In terms of degrees, however, it is acceptable to use terms like “MBA,” “B.A.,” “Ph.D.,” etc.
■ Use more than one page, if necessary. The computer can handle two or three, and the more skills you list in this extra space, the more “hits” you will get from the computer (a “hit” occurs when one of your skills matches what the computer is looking for).
Properly formatting your electronic resume is critical to having it scanned or read; however, it is what you say within your resume that will ultimately get you hired. According to Rebecca Smith, M.Ed., author of Electronic Resumes & Online Networking (Career Press, 2nd Edition) and companion website (www.eresumes.com):
The emphasis is not on trying to second-guess every possible keyword a recruiter may use to find your resume. Your focus is on selecting and organ- izing your resume’s content in order to highlight those keywords for a vari- ety of online situations. The idea is to identify all possible keywords that are appropriate to your skills and accomplishments that support the kinds of jobs you are looking for. But to do that, you must apply traditional resume
Keywords are the basis of the electronic search and retrieval process.
They provide the context from which to search for a resume in a database, whether the database is a proprietary one that serves a specific purpose, or whether it is a Web-based search engine that
serves the general public. Keywords are a tool to quickly browse without having to access the complete text. Keywords are used
to identify and retrieve resumes for the user.
Employers and recruiters generally search resume databases using keywords: nouns and phrases that highlight technical and
professional areas of expertise, industry-related jargon, projects, achievements, special task forces, and other
distinctive features about a prospect’s work history.
writing principles to the concept of extracting those keywords from your resume. Once you have written your resume, then you can identify your strategic keywords based on how you imagine people will search for your resume.
Examples of good keywords are:
Hospitality Management Banquet Sales
Marketing Guest Relations Employee Training Front Office Management Occupancy Rate
Guest Services
Convention Management Reservations
Restaurant Catering Menu Beverage
Point-Of-Service (POS) System Sanitation Certification
Food Service Management Chef
Foodservice Management Professional (FMP) Organized and Dependable
Responsible Willing to travel Resourcefulness Team Player Flexible Energetic
Industry-related buzzwords, job-related technical jargon, licenses, and degrees are among the other opportunities you will have to come up with keywords to add to your electronic resume. If you are posting your resume
on the Internet, look for the categories that the website uses and make sure you use them too. Be sure the words “hotel manager” or “restaurant manag- er” appear somewhere on your resume, and use accepted professional jargon.
The keywords you incorporate into your resume should support or be relevant to your job objective. Some of the best places within your resume to incorporate keywords can be:
Job titles
Responsibilities
Accomplishments
Skills
An excellent resource for helping you select the best keywords to use within your electronic resume is the Occupational Outlook Handbook (pub- lished annually by the U.S. Department of Labor). This publication is avail- able, free of charge, online (www.stats.bls.gov); however, a printed edition can also be found at most public libraries.
The following is a list of skills almost any company or organization—
from a large national motel chain to a local steak house in Dayton, Ohio—
will want in a hotel or restaurant manager, so any that you can include on your resume will give you an edge:
basic knowledge of computers—ability to use the latest software pro- grams: Databases, reservation programs, menu programs, staff sched- uling programs, etc.
flexibility and willingness to work long hours
being a team player
ability to manage other people
ability to handle disgruntled guests and employee disputes
understanding of organizational relationships, roles, and functions
adeptness at working independently, solving problems, and making decisions
organizational skills to order supplies and keep track of inventory
ability to handle stress
willingness to relocate